Jacques Nasser’s attempts to build a more multi-faced business at Ford may have fallen short, but he points to similar — successful — efforts at Volkswagen as proof they were right then and are right now for the global miner BHP Billiton

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Jacques Nasser’s attempts to build a more multi-faced business at Ford may have fallen short, but he points to similar — successful — efforts at Volkswagen as proof they were right then and are right now for the global miner BHP BillitonTimes photographer, Ben Gurr

Fighting on many fronts is key for the huge global miner and its chairman Jacques Nasser

It may be many years since Jacques Nasser earned the nickname Jac the Knife
while working at Ford. But there is still something steely about the
64-year-old Australian now in his third year as chairman of BHP Billiton.

Marius Kloppers, chief executive of the Anglo-Australian mining giant, waived
his annual bonus recently because a fall in the US natural gas price had
forced BHP to write down the value of shale gasfields it bought 18 months
ago by $2.8 billion.

Yet the price has recovered sharply since then and, in a rare interview, Mr
Nasser discloses that if the valuation